British architect Sir Peter Cook had made his career choice when he was eight. In a freewheeling chat with Shrabasti Mallik at his first exhibition in India, he shares his frank views about the concept of smart cities and the ‘terrible’ system of architecture education
There is only one difference between Harry Potter and Sir Peter Cook — the huge age difference. The rest, however, are very similar. Both of them are wizards of their world — Harry of witchcraft and wizardry and Cook of architecture and art. Surprisingly, their similarities even narrows down to the same designed round framed glasses.
And our conclusions were proven true when we met the world renowned architect before he busied himself in setting up his first exhibition in India.
While most architects nowadays just require the measurement of the land on which to sketch a building, Cook requires more than that. Called the Picasso of architecture, this English architect requires a little more than just the figures of the land. “Before you even begin to make your sketch, it is imperative that you are familiar with the land on which your structure would stand. The land, the topography, climate and geography are the factors that you should be very familiar with,” Cook said amidst the hustle and bustle at Gallery Espace, where people scurried to put up all 34 of his artworks on time. It is important for Cook to take into consideration the people and also the feel of the town. “I am very interested in that,” he stressed.
It is this inquisitive nature of his that led him to discover something unique and interesting about Austria. When he was asked to design an art museum there, he was given a brief about the beauty of the place. “I was told about the valleys and the grand palaces. But I got to find out that the revenue of the country just comes from two places. A large truck company and two universities with over 25,000 students,” he told us. During his getting-to-know-the-surrounding time, he discovered the part of the site which would face the town, which would have plenty of light and also the part from where the structure would be most clearly visible. That was how Kunsthaus Graz (art institute) was constructed in 2003.
As a child, he used to accompany his father to different buildings because his father was in charge of acquiring buildings for the army. “He was a soldier but that was also a part of his job, too,” said Cook. So, as they moved from town to town with his father coming across different structures and buildings, he understood what a structure is like. “I started comparing them with each other and that became a practice,” added the man who had decided to be an architect by the time he was eight.
Cook is also the founder and member of the avant-garde architectural group Archigram, known for pioneering path-breaking ideas and constructions during the 60s. But we got to hear the real story from the horse’s mouth. “We were a group of people who were either working together or corresponding with. Once we were asked to do a project together. It was after that that art critics started calling us Archigram which was actually the name of a publication back then. And we let it be,” he said.
When we asked him about the new concepts that the group brought to the table, he said, “I think it was the benefit of having several members who were liberal in their thoughts and who thought in very different ways. None of us had been to the same universities so ideologies differed and that was positive. It made sure that we got a wide coverage of inputs from everybody.”
Sitting amidst few of his best and choicest works from 1960 till 2000, he talked to us about his beliefs. “I believe architecture has always been art,” he chose his words carefully, “I think that it has always been affected by art. You just have to look at it that way. I think architecture can make life better, not in giant percentages. I think where you have an intelligent architectural culture they do the best with it as much as they possibly can.”
He, however, is not very comfortable with the concept of smart cities, we found out. At the very onset he let us know that the concept is not new to begin with. He recalled that there was an idea of a computer city in 1964 in England. But he did point out that the concept of smart cities in India has to do a lot with infrastructure. “You cannot have a highly sophisticated system with bad roads. There is no point in building a smart system and then having trouble just to get a truck down the road. The concept of smart cities is only half of the story. A lot of other things are involved in it, too,” he explained.
Usually an architect would keep in mind the amount of space he has while working on his sketch but Cook chooses to picture a theatrical setting in his mind. And even imagines him in it. “Sometimes I draw cartoons just to get a picture of the real thing,” he chuckled. He told us the story of how one time when he was working on an architectural school in Australia; he did a lot of cartoons before plunging into work. After the building was complete he conducted a lecture there. “I also took a lot of pictures and when I going through them, I found one resemble an exact image of a cartoon that I had doodled. It was so funny,” he laughed.
There are perhaps very few people who gladly accept shortcomings in their characters and Cook is one of them. Not only did he share with us that he gets easily bored and has a low tolerance level but also added unabashedly, “And I think I have a pretty ironic view of life. I see humour and irony in almost every situation and I like to release that by drawing something. I cannot do one thing at a stretch. That is when my cynicism kicks in.”
An admirer of Indian Mughal architecture, he pointed out that there are no structures in the country that fascinate him. But he was also quick to add, “That may be because I haven’t travelled that much of the place.” When we asked him about the other architectural wonders of the world that has caught his fancy, he fell mum. “Very tricky,” he mumbled and after pondering for a few seconds replied, “Of fairly contemporary architecture, I would say Tokyo but there is still a lot of terrible stuff in that place. In recent years there has been extraordinary work of architecture done in Japan and some imaginative architecture being done in countries like Austria, Chile and some works are beginning in Australia, too.”
Even though he has not been to many parts of the country, he did mention that Mumbai intrigued him most. Before he could ask why he told us, “Most of the interesting young architects that I have met belong to Mumbai — young people who have been my students or are interns in my firm Crab.”
According to him the education system, particularly in regard to architecture, needs to be upgraded. When we asked him what he thought of the present system he ruled it out as “mostly terrible.” “Even the education system is terrible mostly. There are a lot of academicians who like to have power over talent. They will get degrees one after the other and then start constructing buildings. A true architect needs to get into the subject, know everything there is to now about and have a clear vision before putting it down on paper. People no do not have that imagination. I think that the value system of architecture is made up, you cannot completely prove it,” he elaborated.
He let us in to his ongoing projects. Interestingly he is working on a school building for an art academy and we found out why this particular project is close to his heart. “I have based the structure completely on natural light,” he wrapped up.